"tremendous amount of heat" from Jupiter's interior - NUCLEARSPACE MESSAGE BOARD (ACTIVE)

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TOPIC: "tremendous amount of heat" from Jupiter's interior

10kBq Jaro

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Date: Nov 19, 2005

"tremendous amount of heat" from Jupiter's interior	Permalink

What's also interesting (see article below) is scientists' thoughts on where this heat in the interior originates. When one of the authors of the Nature report was asked, he proposed the standard explanation -- the gradual release of gravitational potential energy from Jupiter's formation, controlled by the planet's limited capacity for heat conduction from it's great mass. However, Jupiter is composed almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, mostly highly compressed metallic form, which are about the best heat conductors imaginable. That heat would have been released a very, very long time ago. When confronted with this problem, the scientist simply opined that it wasn't part of their investigation. End of problem. Recall that San Diego geophysicist J. Marvin Herndon maintains that this continuing heating of Jupiter and some other planets is due to a nuclear georeactor (see http://www.nuclearplanet.com/ ). http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/jupiters_winds_inside.html?10112005 Jupiter's Winds Come From Inside Summary - (Nov 10, 2005) An international team of researchers have developed a new computer model that simulated Jupiter's incredible weather systems. Jupiter's weather is much different from the Earth's, as the strong winds continuously circle the planet, changing very little over time. The massive East-West winds in Jupiter's equatorial region can reach speeds of 550 kph (340 mph). The simulation predicts that the planet's hot interior powers these winds, and explains why they can stay so stable for centuries. A new computer model indicates Jupiter's massive winds are generated from deep within the giant planet's interior, a UCLA scientist and international colleagues report today in the journal Nature. Jupiter's powerful winds are very different from those on Earth. They continually circle the planet, and have changed very little in the 300 years that scientists have studied them. Massive east-west winds in Jupiter's equatorial region reach approximately 340 miles per hour — twice as rapid as winds generated by strong hurricanes on Earth. At higher latitudes, the wind pattern switches to alternating jets that race around the planet. No one has been able to explain why the winds are so constant or what generates them — but that may change. "Our model suggests convection driven by deep internal heat sources power Jupiter's surface winds," said Jonathan Aurnou, UCLA assistant professor of planetary physics. "The model provides a possible answer to why the winds are so stable for centuries. Jupiter's surface is the tail; the dog is the hot interior of the planet. <SNIP> Jupiter's radius is more than 11 times the radius of Earth. A tremendous amount of heat comes from the interior. "The heat from Jupiter's interior is comparable to the heat the planet receives from the sun," Aurnou said. <SNIP> <END QUOTE> __________________

GoogleNaut

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Date: Nov 20, 2005

RE: "tremendous amount of heat" from Jupiter's interior	Permalink

It seems plausible that if decay heat and/or fission provides the heat for Earth's interior, it is entirely plausible to think that a similar system may be at worki within Jupiter. Being so much more massive than Earth it is plausible to think that such a system may release proportionately more energy. I would also posit that "Wind" as refered to on Jupiter is a bit of a conceptual misnomer. Here on Earth, the term "Wind" relates to the movement of air relative to the stationary ground. If one were caught in the gas streams of Jupiter then one would be blown along with the gas--as if suspended from a 'hot air balloon', the only real sense of motion would likely come with turbulance. And turbulance would be tremendous at the boundries where counter-circling jet streams rub against each other. Jupiter has an extremely violent atmosphere--I would not recommend any balloon or glider rides for paying passengers, although I'd love to drop more instrument packages into Jupe's atmosphere! __________________

10kBq Jaro

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Posts: 411

Date: Nov 28, 2006

RE: "tremendous amount of heat" from Jupiter's interior	Permalink

<quote>There is an additional energy source that we haven't yet identified <end quote> http://skytonight.com/news/4751026.html Plethora of Puffy Planets November 27, 2006 by Robert Naeye Astronomers have confirmed 14 exoplanets that transit their host stars. All of these worlds orbit their suns at very close distances, and thus are heated to high temperatures. Unlike other exoplanets, transiting bodies enable observers to measure their masses and diameters, which in turn yield their densities. As of a few months ago, the transiting planet HD 209458b in Pegasus stood out like a sore thumb. Despite being only 70% as massive as Jupiter, its diameter is 35% greater, which is much larger than theoretical models predict for Jupiter-mass planets in tight orbits. But recent observations suggest that at least three other recently discovered transiting exoplanets are also puffed up like HD 209458b. In September 2006 Gáspár Bakos (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) and his colleagues discovered the transiting exoplanet HAT-P-1b, which has a diameter 35% greater than Jupiter's (December issue, page 22). Groups led by David Charbonneau (also at Harvard-Smithsonian) and Avi Shporer (Wise Observatory, Israel) found that the planet WASP-1b has a diameter about 40% larger than Jupiter's. A European team led by Frederic Pont (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland) finds that two planets discovered by the Polish Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment have diameters about 30% larger than Jupiter's (though another group disputes one of these findings). "Inflated Jupiters are common," says Charbonneau. "Four or five out of 14 are way too large given their masses." In 2005 Joshua Winn (now at MIT) and Matthew Holman (Harvard-Smithsonian) developed a model that could explain HD 209458b's low density. In rare circumstances, they noted, a massive planet could park itself in orbit around its host star while being tipped on its axis, giving it a high obliquity. In this configuration, the star's gravity raises a tidal bulge in the planet's atmosphere that sloshes north and south every orbit, injecting heat into the interior that inflates the planet. But Winn and Holman also noted that only a rare set of circumstances would allow a close-in planet to exist in a high-obliquity state, which worked fine when only one low-density world was known. But Winn now concedes, "My guess is that with 4 out of 14 puffballs, obliquity tides are not the correct explanation. Instead, I think we're missing something fundamental about the interior structure or atmospheres of hot Jupiters." Charbonneau adds, "We have a definite puzzle in need of an answer. There is an additional energy source that we haven't yet identified." __________________

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